What changed between 10 and 17 September? Come to think of it, nothing, really. Except the additional embarrassment that piled up for the Mamata Banerjee government in moving from “will think about the police commissioner’s resignation after Durga Puja” to “we acceded to protesters’ demands a little more because they’re younger.”
The first was Banerjee a week ago, when she rebuffed all demands of protesting doctors. The second was her on the night of 16 September, following what many have termed a capitulation. From the tone-deaf “return to Puja, return to the festival” to the late-night press conference where she announced that Kolkata CP Vineet Goyal will be removed, the chief minister does seem to have gained some of her characteristic political astuteness back.
She announced that apart from the CP, the Deputy Commissioner-North, under whose jurisdiction RG Kar Medical College and Hospital falls, will also be shifted out. She announced more upcoming changes in the Kolkata Police establishment, adding that the Director of Medical Education and the Director of Health Services will be removed as well.
Mamata Banerjee should be concerned
The protesters had also demanded the removal of the principal secretary of health, but the government negotiated that on the ground that the whole top bureaucracy of the department could not be shunted out at one go. But mere reshuffles in the bureaucracy and the IPS establishment will not suffice. What Banerjee seems to be in serious need of is a new set of advisors. That her MLAs and ministers are so disconnected from the mood of the people should be a matter of grave concern for the chief minister. Especially because she is a former street fighter who takes great pride in her understanding of the pulse of people—something that helped her call out the demonetisation debacle within the first few hours.
Some time before last night’s truce, Senior West Bengal minister Siddiqullah Choudhury repeated that nasty jibe about how agitating doctors have no qualms about taking salaries from the government. Before Choudhury it was TV star and MLA Kanchan Mallick, whose jeering video statement about protesting doctors accepting salaries, Puja bonuses and state awards, had sparked disgust and outrage even among his own cine colleagues.
Mamata Banerjee’s handling of this crisis is detached from her usual ability to connect with the people. Moreover, the discordant note struck by her nephew and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee on social media has spawned conspiracy theories about a transfer of power. Her own party members added fuel to the fire when they—after the resignation of former bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar from the Rajya Sabha— started talking about how “Abhishek da” is needed to stem the rot.
Sircar, in his letter to Banerjee, had also lamented the absence of that “old Mamata” whose glimpses seemed to sometimes emerge in the last few days. It appeared when she went to the protest site, and allowed barricades to be removed from in front of her Kalighat residence Monday night so that a bus carrying protesting doctors could arrive right at her doorstep. But Kolkata’s streets did not just erupt about that one case of rape and murder of a woman doctor, who some call Abhaya, and some Tilottama.
Also read: Rape isn’t just a Bengal problem. It’s a wake-up call for police, courts and schools
Address the systemic rot before it’s late
Trinamool Congress, its loyalists and occasionally the CM herself have reminded us repeatedly in the 39 days since the heinous RG Kar case that rapes and other such crimes happen in all parts of the country. But in Kolkata, the incident became a nucleus around which years of angst over a rotting system coalesced into a solid mass. One that none of the ruling establishment’s political machinations or unsavoury comments – such as questioning demands for justice ‘because the case was with CBI’, or talking about patients’ plight to get the doctors back to work – could break.
The systemic rot manifests itself in many forms: the syndicate, a cartel that takes cuts from all construction work and whose tentacles are said to reach the highest echelons of the government; the civic volunteers of questionable integrity, one of whom is now in custody for the crime; the rampant corruption in medicine and outside (the North Bengal lobby is said to call all shots in the state’s health system). These are just a few examples.
If Mamata Banerjee does not recognise that and course correct ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections, the euphoria of having reduced Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lok Sabha tally in 2024 will be very short-lived. Trinamool will end up paving the way for the BJP’s entry into West Bengal for a second time. It was, after all, as an ally of TMC that BJP won its first Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal in 1998.
Abantika Ghosh is a journalist and public policy professional. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)